Liebster Award Passed on by Private English Tutor in Stoke on Trent

It seems an age since I passed on a blog award. That means that this is the first one I have received in an age.

Why is that? Probably because I haven’t acquired any/many new followers for the past six months or so.

Why is that? I haven’t really had time to ferret around WordPress and entice new bloggers into my lair.

Why is that? My time has been spent on my first novel. Never did I expect such a project to voraciously nibble + grab + gobble my Time. Be warned you ‘Novel Dreamers’ out there. Be prepared to give your soul if want to travel down the path to being an ‘author’.

Writing a Novel Eats Your Time

However, all that changed a few days ago when The Emporium of Lost Thoughts handed me the Liebster Award baton. Being brought in from the cold and allowed to thaw out in the warmth of a peer-awarded honour is extremely gratifying. I would like to thank The Emporium of Lost Thoughts andhighly recommend the blog to you. Go on, you’ve got a couple of minutes to spare, take a peep. Who knows, you may be tempted to click the ‘Follow’ button.

All honours come with responsibilities and these are as follows: [although I do always bend rules, so I may not quite walk the straight line specified – :-)]

Each nominee must link back the person who nominated them.

Answer the 10 questions which are given to you by the nominator.

Nominate 10 other bloggers for this award who have less than 200 followers.

Create 10 questions for your nominees to answer.

Let the nominees know that they have been nominated by going to their blog and notifying them

Your Questions:

1. What’s the best meal you’ve ever had? (Bonus follow-up question for the truly keen: where did you eat said meal?)

Way back in 1977 I made my first trip to the USA. I was taken to McDonald’s. I had never been to one before – not sure if we had them in England. I had the most humoungous burger filled with everything. I had never tasted anything quite like it. My friend, seeing my obvious enjoyment, brought me a second one. I was only a skinny, weedy fellow and not used to piggin’ out on food. The second one didn’t taste quite so good! This is not an advert or recommendation for that well-known fast-food chain but merely one example of things I got up to in my mis-spent youth.

2. If you could vacation anywhere in the world, where would you go.

Having achieved my dream of going to Antarctica, I am tempted to say I would go there again but how can you better a dream? Going twice would be greedy – a bit like that second burger above! It would have to be the Galapagos Islands this time.

3. What’s the best gift you’ve ever given and/or received?

This has to be two I have given recently. I adopted both a tiger and a snow leopard with the World WildLife Fund and have given them as birthday presents.

Who Would Want to Kill Him?

4. What ability or skill do you wish you had (that you don’t have already?)

My novel will soon be put in the hands of a professional editor – being able to do that myself would save me lots of pennies.

5. What’s the biggest problem facing the world right now? (Bonus follow-up question for those so inclined: If you alone could solve it, how would you do it?)

This is tied-in with Q.3 above. How to save our wild creatures of the earth from extinction. To solve it is easy – get rid of the people; we’ve been given our chance and squandered it. . .

6. Aside from food, water and shelter, what one thing could you not go a day without.

I do use my computer a lot. . .

7. In everyday life, what is your number one pet peeve?

Being of a certain age I have become very grouchy, so the difficulty here is choosing just one from many that I grumble about daily.🙂

How about other drivers? Speeding/not indicating/tail-gating/loud music – why should I want to listen to their choice when I have my own in-car sound system/lack of courtesy on the road – you get the idea?

‘Don’t Worry be Happy‘ by Bobby McFerrin. With over 22,000,000 hits on YouTube I’m obviously not on my own.

9. How do you want people to remember you when you’re gone?

To be remembered fondly by friends. I can picture them now at my funeral:

Friend 1: He owed me a fifty quid/bucks

Friend 2: And me

Friend 3: Me too

Friend 4: Bastard!

He owed me fifty quid

10. If you could spend a day with 1 person, living or dead, who would it be and why?

William Shakespeare on performance day at The Globe. I can’t think of anything more awesome than to witness one of his plays, at his theatre, in his time.

Blog Nominations

Why these nominations? I mentioned earlier that I haven’t had so many followers lately, so being the good egg that I am it seemed right and proper to thank my last five followers. I haven’t had much time to ‘get to know’ these fellow bloggers but what I have seen I highly recommend to you.

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Congratulations and what interesting answers. I’m with you definitely on your Galapagos trip and (great minds) I also gave WWF sponsorship pressys. However, disagree on one thing I don’t believe anyone however clever/skilled can really edit their own work. Too close, nothing new, assumptions etc.I swore blind that after 3 edits I’d caught everything but I’ve just got my mss back from a pro and there isn’t a page untouched now..(included structural editing as well as the proof). Let me know when you go into print won’t you?🙂

It would be nice to win the Richard and Judy book competition with the publishing contract but once I come from the clouds with the fairies I do need a Plan B.

It seems that it is easier to walk on water than get a literary agent so I probably won’t have any other option that goes indie.

Having just about finished my first edit I will take the next few weeks looking at bits of pieces I have been squirreling away i.e. editors/publishers/agents/other contacts, etc.

Do you know anything about ‘Create Space? I was looking at their full-monty $5,000 package yesterday – only looking mind you. Now that I am an honourary Yorkshireman I may decide to take the $5,000 with me when I go.🙂

No I don’t know much about CS actually but it seems an awful lot of dosh for what you could probably do yourself. If you go that route I recommend your taking a look at Catherine Caffeinated’s blog. She has a guide to indie publishing which I really liked. Some you’ll be aware of but she takes you step by step thro’ the process of formatting for ebooks and for POD, including using CreateSpace. Worth a skeg. For me (and I’m guessing for you too) it’s the sheer amount of work that is necessary to market your book that is problematic, particularly when you have a day job. The place to invest in might be some pro. PR/marketing? I’ve been collecting all sorts of tips and approaches to marketing and if you find yourself going down that route I’d be happy to share.

Thanks for your reply and the offer to share the nuts you’ve been squirreling away. I am sure I will take you up on the offer once I’m a little further down the line. Remember those three editor contacts you sent me? I’ll be chasing them up soon.

Yes, it is a lot of money. I was just browsing and looking at all the components they offered for $5,000, although there are probably extras to add on to that.

I have been following Catherine’s blog for quite a while. She’s one of the source’s I will be checking out over the next few weeks. David Gaughran’s stuff is also interesting about self-publishing.

Yay for the Liebster Award! Congrats to you, as it’s well-deserved. I don’t see how anyone could wander into your blog and not want to stay. Wonderful writing and fun posts — what more could we readers hope for?🙂

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